Pain
by grimmkittylove
Summary: AU. SBHG. Rated T for angst and suggestive themes. "We comforted each other the only way we knew how..."


**Pain**

A Harry Potter Songfic by Silverstar's Shadow

xOx

**AN**: Yet another songfic from Silver. Sirius/Hermione, of course. In this one, Sirius didn't die in OotP, he just passed through the Veil and took a couple years off of his life, and people are being picked off at the end of their sixth year. Hermione is seventeen.

This is sort of like Hermione's diary for that time period, or maybe a letter to someone else. Hermione's thoughts are in normal font, first person, and present tense. Memories are in italics, third person, and past tense. The lyrics to the song are in bold/italics. Thoughts during the memories are in bold.

Probably the angstiest thing I've ever written. Seriously.

**Disclaimer**: Up on top of the world, there is this enormous thing called the Arctic Ice Cap. Now, it is melting at an alarming rate, but it will still take hundreds or thousands of years to be completely gone. When it does melt completely, I will (hopefully) be dead, and will still have no claim at all whatsoever to Harry Potter, because even then, I won't be JK Rowling. The same goes for the song "Pain."

. : - : .

_**Pain, without love**_

_**Pain, can't get enough**_

_**Pain, I like it rough**_

_**Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all**_

. : - : .

Gone. All of them. Just gone. They will never laugh, cry, fight, love, live, breath again. Luna was the first. Bellatrix Lestrange found her alone and injured. She was tortured for information and left for dead. Ron was the one who found her, and he went nearly mad.

He was next. He went after Lestrange during the Hogsmeade confrontation a few months ago. She has been seen since then, and Ron has not. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened. The bitch has slaughtered two of my dearest friends.

Neville came after them. A curse he got during a fight in Diagon Alley got infected because he didn't show it to anyone, and it drove him insane. He killed himself before allowing anyone to take him to St. Mungo's.

Parvati and Padma Patil were found dead in their room. They'd been home alone, as their parents had been at an Order meeting. Nothing gruesome for them, simply an Avada to each while they slept and a Dark Mark over the house.

And now Ginny is missing. Molly is distraught, Harry is sullen and unresponsive, the twins don't come home, and Arthur works until all hours. It seems that Sirius and I are the only ones who act normal, but then, I don't know how he truly feels. I don't even know my own emotions anymore.

. : - : .

_**You're sick of feeling numb**_

_**You're not the only one**_

_**I'll take you by the hand**_

_**And I'll show you a world that you can understand**_

. : - : .

"_Hermione, how do you feel?" She jumped, and turned to stare at him. His eyes were unusually solemn and there was nothing of the playfulness that she had come to expect. It took her a moment before she realized that he'd asked her a question._

"_I don't." she whispered, and for some reason, saying it out loud made it more real. For some reason, she wanted nothing more than to crawl into his lap and cry. And so she did._

_He looked a bit startled at the physical contact, but he took a moment to contemplate what she'd told him. "Do you want to feel?" he asked gently._

_She nodded tearfully. "But it hurts, Sirius. It hurts to feel." She whimpered slightly and grabbed the front of his shirt tightly in one fist. "I want to but…"_

"_Shh…" he soothed, not allowing her to say anything more. She sighed. _**You're not alone anymore…**

. : - : .

_**This life is filled with hurt**_

_**When happiness doesn't work**_

_**Trust me and take my hand**_

_**When the lights go out you will understand**_

. : - : .

"_It doesn't pay to be happy," Hermione announced after a few moments of simply enjoying her friend's company. Sirius raised an eyebrow._

"_Really? Now where did you come to that conclusion?"_

"_When you're happy, other people aren't, and they come to steal it away from you. When you're happy, someone notices, and he murders the people you care about so you're not anymore. Happiness brings hurt."_

_He frowned slightly. "And if you can't manage to not care?"_

"_I don't know," she said, all of a sudden tired. "I just don't want it to hurt anymore and that's the only way I know how."_

"_Do you want to feel again, Hermione? If you could, would you feel something without it making you even more miserable in the end?"_

"_That's not the way it works, Sirius. Pleasure equals pain. That's that. I don't know what little fantasy world you live in, but life sucks."_

"_Do you trust me?" he asked suddenly._

"_Of course I do," she retorted impatiently. "It's not a matter of trust, it's a matter of reality, and-"_

"_Not that. You closed that subject. I meant, do you trust me?"_

"_I've already answered that."_

_He hesitated slightly, then offered his hand. "Alright, follow me."_

_She took it, and followed._

. : - : .

_**Pain, without love**_

_**Pain, can't get enough**_

_**Pain, I like it rough**_

_**Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all**_

. : - : .

When life gives you lemons… make lemonade. You think know what happened that night? You don't. We were two friends, comforting each other the best way we knew how. You really should know me better than this. I trust him not to try anything I wouldn't do, and in return, he doesn't.

Harry didn't care. Molly didn't notice enough to make assumptions. Remus may have lectured Sirius, or he might not have, but it wouldn't make a difference to either of us. We needed the companionship.

Ginny turned up in the back yard of the Burrow two nights ago, mauled beyond recognition and cold as if she'd been dead for days. Harry shut down. I'm amazed that Molly even has tears left in her body. Grimmauld Place is now home to the Weasleys, the Tonks', the Lupins, Harry, Sirius, and me, as Dumbledore has deemed the Burrow, Ted Tonks' home, and Professor Lupin's cottage unsafe for the members of the Order. I say, 'What order?' There is definitely nothing orderly about this group of frightened, outnumbered people.

. : - : .

_**Pain, without love**_

_**Pain, can't get enough**_

_**Pain, I like it rough**_

_**Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all**_

. : - : .

_She traced the slim white scars on her right forearm. One… Two. Three… Four. Five… Six. Seven… Wait a moment, that wasn't right. Ginny was gone now, too. Eight. There should be Eight. She was one short. _**Not enough. One more**_, the knife hidden in the nightstand beside her seemed to whisper from the confines of its drawer. She glanced at her bedmate. He was sleeping deeply, his low snoring faintly audible. Carefully, as so not to wake him, she slipped out, pulled on a bathrobe, and retrieved the blade._

_The witch tread softly over to the bathroom, by now able to avoid the few creaky floorboards. She took a breath, went inside, and closed the door behind her. There was silence for a moment. A soft hiss could have been heard, had someone pressed their ear to the door or employed an Extendable Ear, and then nothing again._

_A few moments later, she came back out, a soft, wet red cloth wrapped tightly around her right arm._

. : - : .

_**Anger and agony**_

_**Are better than misery**_

_**Trust me, I've got a plan**_

_**When the lights go out you'll understand**_

. : - : .

**You can't just want to cast an Unforgivable... You have to **_**MEAN**_** it.**

_Well, she meant it all right. Hermione followed her retreating opponent into an alley, shooting curses at her prey left and right. The black-haired woman she had been pursuing stopped dead at the wall. There was no way out._

"_Crucio…" It was a whisper, barely even a sound, but it held so much hate that the spell even gave its caster a horrible pricking in her spine. She just laughed, as the Death Eater shrieked, echoing her torturer's mirth. Perhaps she did have some sort of sympathy for the enemy, after all. When using this curse, Hermione Granger was just as insane, just as much of a masochist as Bellatrix Lestrange._

. : - : .

_**Pain, without love**_

_**Pain, can't get enough**_

_**Pain, I like it rough**_

_**Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all**_

. : - : .

I finally captured her that day. I'm not quite sure what snapped me out of it, but I'm grateful for it. Perhaps it was her eyes. They're remarkably familiar to me, as they belong to her cousin as well. By the time my friends caught up to me though, to get back on the subject, she was gagged and bound and I was getting ready to transport her to the Ministry holding cells.

None of them know what transpired that day. My actions were legal, according to the new law that Unforgivables may be used on known Death Eaters, but I don't want anyone to know. I don't want them to know how I enjoyed it, how I loved watching her scream, how I felt the sheer power that comes from finally having the upper hand on the one person you blame for most of your misery.

. : - : .

_**Pain, without love**_

_**Pain, can't get enough**_

_**Pain, I like it rough**_

_**Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing**_

_**Rather feel pain**_

. : - : .

_A dark haired boy with glasses and an oddly shaped scar stood on a hill, across from a tall, pale man with strange red eyes. The boy bowed mockingly, and the man tilted his head in the same manner._

_And so the final duel between the Boy-Who-Lived and Lord Voldemort began._

_The boy's supporters stood on one side of the hill, behind him to act as reinforcements if need be, and the man's servants did the same. Spells flew, and neither seemed to get the upper hand, until there was a flash of green light. Lord Voldemort lay still, and Harry Potter gave a small smile. The dark-robed beings in face-obscuring masks roared as one, and surged toward the other side, until there was a flash of golden light, and their master's vanquisher fell to the ground beside his greatest foe._

_The screaming began with her anguished, feral cry, the first show of true emotion she'd shown since the first of her friends departed from the world._

. : - : .

_**I know (I know) I know (I know)**_

_**I know that you're wounded**_

_**You know (you know) you know (you know)**_

_**That I'm here to save you**_

_**You know (you know) you know (you know)**_

_**I'm always here for you**_

_**I know (I know) I know (I know)**_

_**That you'll thank me later**_

. : - : .

_She was curled up on the couch, staring into space with a vacant expression on her face. Only her eyes betrayed her mask of indifference; her wild, unfocused, tear-filled eyes proved to her companion that she was nearly completely broken._

_Her arms tightened around him slightly as a low growl escaped her throat; whatever she was seeing, it wasn't good. He placed a small kiss on the top of her head, which seemed to calm her immensely. Her grip loosened._

"_Do you trust me, Hermione?" he asked just as he had that first night._

"_Of course," she replied feebly. His dark eyes stared into hers and he found he couldn't look away. They were fascinating, those eyes of hers, always giving you sublte hints to the state of her mind, yet closing off any clear confirmation._

"_Trust me," he repeated softly, toying with a piece of her soft, though admittedly unkempt, caramel-brown hair._

"_I do," the witch replied weakly. She smiled slightly through her tears, and buried her face in his chest. Sirius sighed, before standing up, and carrying her up the stairs. None of the portraits complained at all for being awoken at this hour, but simply looked on as the two went past them. As soon as she hit the bed, she pulled him down with her, and sighed. He smiled crookedly down at her, the animal he'd caged for so long finally breaking through his defenses._

"_Trust me…"_

. : - : .

_**Pain, without love**_

_**Pain, can't get enough**_

_**Pain, I like it rough**_

_**Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all**_

. : - : .

He found the scars that night. I told him what they were, what they meant. How each one reminded me every day of a life I could have, _should_ have saved. That each scar was tiny reminder of the freedom they all must have felt, knowing they were leaving this life at last, compared to the release I gained making the little white mark on my skin. How I would bathe each in a specially made solution, to make it stay there forever, so I would never be able to forget.

I told him that the first was for my mother, the second for my father. They'd been gone the longest. Not dead, but never to remember the daughter they'd raised. Then for Luna, Ron, Neville, Padma, Parvati, Ginny, Tonks, Kingsley, Andromeda, Fred, George, Bill, Arthur, Remus, and Harry. And finally, the last one, the closest to the vein in my wrist, was me.

. : - : .

_**Pain, without love**_

_**Pain, can't get enough**_

_**Pain, I like it rough**_

_**Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all**_

. : - : .

_Through each other, they survived the agony of living after the death of those dear to them._

_Rest In Peace_

_Sirius Orion and Hermione Jane Granger Black_

. : - : .

_**Pain, without love**_

_**Pain, can't get enough**_

_**Pain, I like it rough**_

_**Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all**_

_**Rather feel pain than nothing at all**_

_**Rather feel pain**_


End file.
